Page 402 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

"That last thing I want to do is blackmail anyone. You know where my loyalties lie. But you might hint to your friends in the Agency that, naturally, I wouldn't spill the beans on my employer."

"I get it."

"So, what do you think?"

"I think you're a shoo-in."

*

George was happy and proud to be on the special prosecutor's team. He felt he was part of the group leading American politics, as he had been when working for Bobby Kennedy. His only problem was that he did not know how he could ever go back to the kind of penny-ante cases he had been working at Fawcett Renshaw.

It took five months, but in the end Nixon was forced to hand over to the special prosecutor three raw tapes from the Oval Office recording system.

George Jakes was in the office with the rest of the team when they listened

to the tape from June 23, 1972, less than a week after the Watergate burglary.

He heard the voice of Bob Haldeman. "The FBI is not under control because Gray doesn't exactly know how to control it."

The recording was echoey but Haldeman's cultured baritone was fairly clear.

Someone said: "Why would the president need to have the FBI under control?" It was a rhetorical question, George thought. The only reason was to stop the Bureau investigating the president's own crimes.

On the tape, Haldeman went on: "Their investigation is now leading into some productive areas because they have been able to trace the money."

George recalled that the Watergate burglars had had a lot of cash in new bills with sequential numbers. That meant that sooner or later the FBI would be able to find out who had given them the money.

Everyone now knew that this money came from CREEP. However, Nixon was still denying that he had known anything about it. Yet here he was talking about it six days after the burglary!

The gravelly bass voice of Nixon interrupted. "The people who donated money could just say they gave it to the Cubans."

George heard someone in the room say: "Holy crap!"

The special prosecutor stopped the tape.

George said: "Unless I'm mistaken, the president is proposing to ask his donors to perjure themselves."

The special prosecutor said dazedly: "Can you imagine that?"

He pressed the button and Haldeman resumed. "We don't want to be relying on too many people. The way to handle this now is for us to have Walters call Pat Gray and just say: 'Stay the hell out of this.'"

This was close to a story Jasper Murray had run based on a leak from Maria. General Vernon Walters was the deputy director of the CIA. The Agency had a long-standing agreement with the FBI: if an investigation by one threatened to expose secret operations of the other, that investigation could be halted by a simple request. Haldeman's idea seemed to be to get the CIA to pretend that the FBI's investigation into the Watergate burglars was somehow a threat to national security.

Which would be perversion of the course of justice.

On the tape, President Nixon said: "Right, fine."

The prosecutor stopped the tape again.

"Did you hear that?" George said incredulously. "Nixon said: 'Right, fine.'"

Nixon went on: "It's likely to blow the whole Bay of Pigs thing, which we think would be very unfortunate for the CIA and for the country and for American foreign policy." He seemed to be spinning a story that the CIA might tell the FBI, George thought.

"Yeah," said Haldeman. "That's the basis we'll do it on."

The prosecutor said: "The president of the United States sitting in his office telling his staff how to commit perjury!"

Everyone in the room was stunned. The president was a criminal, and they had the proof in their hands.

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